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Donna Khalife
Donna Khalifé is a singer, double bass player, composer, arranger born in Lebanon.
She starts her first piano lessons at an early age. In 2003, she moves to Paris to continue her music studies: piano, orchestration, harmony … Her conducting classes and her jazz and improvisation classes contribute a lot in shaping her musical sensibilities. Through the years, she improves her singing, composing, arranging and improvisation, as well as her piano and double bass playing.
Her eclecticism leads her to take part in different projects, in Lebanon and abroad both as leader and side woman as she multiplies also her collaborations with other art forms like theatre, dance, cinema.
She released her first album “Heavy Dance” featuring her quintet in 2017, her second album “Hope is the thing with feathers” in 2019 and her third album « Home » under the name of Hayeli (her duo with double bassist Khachatur Savzyan) in April 2025.
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Hayeli: Mirrors Unto The Improvising Soul
by Ian Patterson
Two double basses is an uncommon lineup, particularly when it comes to improvised music. But Lebanese double bassist Donna Khalifé and Armenian double bassist Khachatur Savzyan are well attuned to one another. Partners in life, their creative philosophy is reflected in each other's approach to improvisation. Not for nothing is their project entitled Hayeli, which means “mirror" in Armenian. Their debut album, Home (Self Produced, 2025), is a visceral, haunting and ultimately uplifting affair. In essence, home means ...
Continue ReadingHayeli: Home
by Ian Patterson
Hayeli is the moniker of Lebanese double bassist Donna Khalifé and Armenian double bassist Khachatur Savzyan, partners in life as in music. Khalifé is held in high esteem as one of the most progressive voices on Beirut's jazz and improvised music scene--a reputation her highly original self-produced albums Heavy Dance (2017) and Hope is the Thing with Feathers (2019) strongly support. In addition to her conservatoire study in Paris--and like most bassists in the Lebanese capital--she also studied with Savzyan, ...
Continue ReadingA Brief Guide To Lebanese Jazz
by Ian Patterson
Lebanon is known for many things--its lush valleys, a fertile coastal plain and a 170 km-long mountain range carpeted with cedar, oak and pine. Beirut, Tripoli, Sidon, Tyre, Byblos and Baalbek--its cities' names resonate with history's vibrations. These are cities that have borne more history than most. It is a country renowned for its love of art and culture. Music is everywhere. Singer Fairouz, one of the most famous and instantly recognizable of Arabic voices since the early ...
Continue ReadingDonna Khalife: Hope is the Thing with Feathers
by Ian Patterson
Two-and-a-half years after her powerful debut, Heavy Dance (Self- Produced, 2017), Lebanese double bassist and singer Donna Khalifé returns with another sparkling statement. It is not an especially long time between releases, but there are significant differences between the two recordings. Heavy Dance, with guitar and saxophone to the fore, was a frequently stormy affair of edgy dissonances, odd metres and punchy angularity. Hope Is The Thing With Feathers, by contrast, is a more melodious experience. Its colors are brighter ...
Continue ReadingDonna Khalifé: On The Silent Wings Of Hope
by Ian Patterson
Ask any jazz musician in Beirut who stands out on the scene, who is doing something adventurous, something different, and the first name that comes to everyone's lips is Donna Khalifé. Classically trained in Beirut and Paris, double bassist/singer Khalifé turned her back on that world to dedicate herself completely to jazz and improvisation. Her debut album, Heavy Dance (Self-Produced, 2017), was a feisty, odd-metred affair of strikingly original compositions and bold improvisations where angularity and beauty went ...
Continue ReadingDonna Khalifé: Hope is the Thing with Feathers
by Hrayr Attarian
Lebanese vocalist and bassist Donna Khalifé is a consummate jazz artist. In addition to mastering singing in all its aspects, including scatting, she is a distinctive composer and an accomplished instrumentalist. On her second release Hope Is the Thing with Feathers she leads her quintet on intriguing interpretations of standards and her own originals. This stimulating album opens with a unique take on Rodgers and Hammerstein's “My Favorite Things." After Khalifé's chant-like vocals, which the group's expectant refrains ...
Continue ReadingLebanon: Jazz And The Revolution
by Ian Patterson
When people's anger and frustration spill onto Beirut's streets, music is one of the first things to suffer. Every few years, it seems, roads are blocked, and crowds swell the downtown area--angry at Syrian intervention or political assassination, enraged by Israeli attack, sick to the teeth of inadequate garbage collection. There's always something to arouse the ire of the Lebanese people. In such times of unrest, when explosions of violence are always a possibility, gigs inevitably, ...
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